After The Fall
by Sandshells
Summary: Oneshot. Molly finds herself sitting alone at Mary and John's wedding, trying to convince herself that she's happy with Tom. She almost succeeds...at least until Sherlock asks her to dance.


A/N: So...I really liked that new episode. When he kissed her...well, I'll just say that if the rest of my household didn't know I love those two together, they sure do now. (I may have screamed a little.) I had to write this. Hope you like!

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As with Sherlock, weddings had never really been Molly's thing.

From the second the invitation would arrive in the mail, the names—whether of colleagues or friends or family—printed perfectly on cream or vanilla-colored paper, something thick and acid would start to form in her stomach. At first it would only be a tiny shape, dark and sour but small, easily muffled by the rush of her day…although it would get bigger at night. Its power would grow throughout the weeks, the darkness increasing every time her gaze fell on the invitation. When the day of the wedding dawned, it would have grown into a sort of snake, thrashing around in her gut, tempting her to call up and say she was sick and couldn't attend after all. Of course she never did—she needed to be there. But the thick darkness would twist and coil within her as she watched the happy couple recite their vows and share their first marital kiss. And the first sour taste would seep into her mouth, no matter how much she tried to push it back.

Molly would smile with the rest of the guests, genuinely happy for whoever it was who was getting married, applauding and congratulating them. But when the dances began, there would be no denying the fact that she was alone. Occasionally another lone wedding-goer would ask her for a dance—or, once, to her horror, someone would try to set her up with someone—but these interludes were invariably awkward and she was always grateful to extricate herself at the end of the dance. She would go back to her table and sip her champagne and pretend that she had hurt her ankle or just didn't feel like dancing, all the while keeping a casual, unconcerned expression on her face, as though she couldn't care less what anyone thought.

But every time she watched a couple twirl happily past her table, her stomach would twist a bit more. The blackness would writhe and become less of a thing than an emptiness inside her, a black pit, swallowing up all of the room's warmth until she found that she was nervously gulping champagne and biting her lip and doing anything to avoid looking at the empty chair beside her. To avoid tasting the bitterness that the emptiness in her stomach was sending up. To avoid the knowledge that after the festivities and laughter were over and everyone left, she would have to leave, too—that she would have to come home that night to an empty bed and a silent apartment and that this was all she had to look forward to for months and perhaps years and maybe forever.

So when she had met Tom, she'd expected him to change all that. She finally had someone to bring to weddings. And when he proposed, she knew she would never feel truly alone again. A spouse was the ultimate emotional safety net. That black feeling in the pit of her stomach would vanish forever.

So why was she still feeling it right now?

Molly shook her head, trying to stop the train of her thoughts, and sipped her champagne. This wedding was different. Busy with work, Tom hadn't come to this one, but she knew he would be there when she came home. She wasn't truly alone anymore. Mary and John were dancing happily in the center of the room; Mary looked radiant, and John like he couldn't believe his luck.

She tried to be happy for them.

More champagne would help.

Greg Lestrade had promised her a dance, just before he leapt up in pursuit of a young, single girl who had come with Mary. She couldn't bring herself to even feel annoyed. That girl had been laughing and had engaged Greg in conversation, totally unself-conscious and free. Molly watched them now; they were twirling happily across the other side of the room. The girl looked like she actually wanted to be there, whereas Molly, if she was being honest with herself, knew she did not.

More and more people were getting up to dance. Every passing second seemed to lure another couple to the center of the room, and Molly was feeling increasingly twitchy and uncomfortable. Her skin prickled.

There was no more champagne on her table, but as she looked around, she spied a glass on an adjacent table. She got up and walked casually over. She had just reached the table when someone cleared his throat behind her.

Molly jumped and turned to see Sherlock, who was looking vaguely uncomfortable. "Molly, would you…" His lowered tone, and the fact that they were somewhat separated from the other guests, made her first, instantaneous thought, form: _He's going to ask me to help solve another case with him._ _Thinking of nothing else, even during a wedding. Predictable._

Well, it made sense that she was still the backup partner, given that John was married now, and would probably be busy with his new life. And she was still available in that department.

Until September.

Weirdly, the thought of this made the feeling in her stomach seem to blacken and sour even more. Not bloom with delight, as it should have.

Instead, he finished the sentence with "…dance with me?" Molly could almost convince herself that he was forcing himself to ask, except for the look in his eyes. With that look in his eyes, she couldn't fool herself. They were clinging to hers, as if searching for the answer before she could even respond.

"Um, sure," she managed. She tried to act nonchalant, like this meant nothing to her and her heart hadn't just leapt into her throat—even though her engagement ring was flashing on the hand she now extended to Sherlock. The stone suddenly seemed to weigh ten pounds. "I didn't know you danced."

"I don't," he admitted. She let him lead her to where the rest of the wedding guests were dancing—it was a waltz now, she realized distantly. Sherlock placed his hands on her waist, sending heat over her skin_—you're engaged you're engaged stop this Molly Hooper you stop it right now_—and they moved to the music. It was easy to let her thoughts wander, and despite herself, her last meeting with Sherlock, and his words to her, slipped into her head.

_"The one person he thought didn't matter at all to me was the one person that mattered the most." _

That entire conversation had been surreal, time seeming to move slowly and then obscenely fast. When he'd noticed her ring—though of course he would have noticed it ages ago, he was Sherlock Holmes after all—and said congratulations, she had embarked on a stilted explanation of Tom. The resultant smile that Sherlock had flashed at her had been completely and utterly fake. Not one iota of it had reached his eyes.

They had not been the eyes of a man who truly meant his congratulations. Maybe he had been experiencing that sour black feeling in his stomach just then, too. Maybe Molly wasn't the only one knew what it was like to watch happy couples turn her stomach into an empty black hole and send bitterness rushing into her mouth.

They were on the far side of the room by now, she realized. John and Mary were dancing faster and more energetically than anyone else in the room, despite the moderate pace of the waltz. Molly caught a glimpse of John's face as he and Mary moved past them—his eyebrows shot up at the sight of who she was dancing with, and then something like a smile spread over his face. But they were gone too quickly for Molly to be sure of what she was seeing.

More of Sherlock's words floated back to her. _"Not all the men you fall for can turn out to be sociopaths." _And the smile—the real, genuine smile—he had given her afterwards.

Now the true meaning of his sentence thudded into her stomach, and she looked suddenly up at him, her mind whirling. She had assumed he'd been talking about Tom, but maybe…maybe she had gotten it wrong. Maybe Sherlock hadn't been talking about her fiancé at all. Maybe he had had himself in mind, and it was his way of telling her that he wasn't quite as cruel…as cold…as emotionless as she had formerly thought him to be.

She almost stopped dancing, recovering her feet when Sherlock glanced down at her questioningly. "Sorry," she muttered, and the damnable blush was spreading up her face now; of course it would be.

"We can sit down if you want," he said. "I'm not the most graceful dancer myself."

Molly hadn't noticed. She had been too full of the touch of Sherlock's hands on her waist, how something made it feel like her dress wasn't even there and they were resting on her bare skin. She didn't care how clumsily Sherlock danced as long as his dark eyes kept catching hers, that small smile appearing in answer to her own. As long as this warmth surrounded her.

And then he said something that made all that vanish.

"There'll be plenty of opportunity for dancing at your wedding."

Now she did stop dancing. Fortunately, they were far enough away on the outskirts of the other dancers that it would appear to onlookers that they were just taking a break. Unless those onlookers looked again and saw Molly's frozen, horrified face. "Why would you say that?" she whispered. She blinked hard, hating that tears had started into her eyes.

Sherlock's hands slipped off of her waist. Too late she realized there had been no bitterness, no anger, in his tone. He had been speaking the truth. Of course. Why not? It wasn't such a ridiculous thing to say. There was plenty of opportunity for dancing at weddings. And her wedding was just a few months from now.

"I'm sorry…" he said, looking confused. She couldn't even push away her own embarrassment and discomfort in order to savor the fact that she had confused Sherlock Holmes. "I…I had no idea that the mention of it would cause you any distress." He was frowning now, his eyes fixed on hers, searching them. Again. "I assumed your wedding was an event that would cause you joy."

She couldn't respond. Of course he would think that. No woman would accept a man's marriage proposal unless she loved him. Unless he brought her joy.

"That's how it's supposed to work, isn't it?"

"I…" With an effort, she swallowed hard. That _was_ how it was supposed to work. "Yes. No. I don't know. It's not that simple really."

"How so?" He was looking at her with that same gentle curious expression he had worn as they lingered at the bottom of the stairs that day, that same expression which barely masked something that was more like…pain.

Without even thinking, Molly spoke. The words rushed past the barrier of self-consciousness she normally had up, spilling out like water past a dam. They were the same words she had thought of telling her friends, and then discarded, knowing they would say she was just having pre-wedding jitters. "I feel like I'm going to be sick whenever I think about it. And I feel all shaky. But it's not just nerves…it's more like the feeling I get before a root canal. Or when I've burnt my hand and it's the split second right before the pain starts. It's just…the _knowing…_it's awful."

She caught her breath. Her own words rushed back to her, echoing in her ears. God, how pathetic. She couldn't even look at Sherlock, scared she had imagined his earlier expression. Sure that now, she would see nothing but pity and disdain in his eyes.

"Don't get married then."

His voice was so calm that she had to raise her head, had to meet his gaze. His tone was the one he used whenever he found the answer to a particularly tricky case, an answer so simple and beautiful that he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before.

"Excuse me?" She was almost sure she'd heard wrong. Or he was joking.

"Don't get married if the thought of doing so makes you feel ill." No, he was deadly serious. And his gaze was fixed on her face with a determination so intense that it made her knees feel watery. Something flashed through the pit of her stomach—not a lonely black emptiness but something hot, something firey and full of desire.

"What am I supposed to do, Sherlock…" She hated how weak she sounded. "Come on. I'm engaged. I can't just wait for someone else to come along, some _perfect_ person to sweep me off my feet and carry me into the sunset…" She tried to laugh but failed. "I'm pretty lucky. Tom is nice. He's reliable. He always pays his bills on ti—"

Sherlock caught her mouth in a kiss, stealing her breath and the rest of her words.

Molly stiffened in surprise at the unexpected heat of his lips on hers. His mouth was warm, far warmer than she had thought possible. And then she relaxed into his touch. She could feel his heartbeat through his skin, his heart thudding as quickly as her own. He tasted sour and sweet and salty all at once—like _Sherlock,_ undeniably and indefinably Sherlock—and she couldn't stop a hand from coming to rest on the side of his neck. Every nerve in her body was buzzing, electrified. His hands were cupping her face now, dwarfing it, warm and strong and purposeful. So different from Tom's timid, hesitant touch. The taste of Sherlock's mouth was sending shivers through her body, spreading a warmth throughout her fingers and down her legs.

She had never dreamed that it could be like this. It was the furthest thing from Tom. On occasion, while kissing him, she had felt like she was kissing one of the dead bodies in the morgue with their cold fish lips and slimy tongue. This was nothing like that. This was heat and fire and life and she wanted more. Something within her was leaping with an excitement she hadn't felt for years, which she had feared was almost gone, and she kissed him back hard, so hard it almost hurt, her heartbeat drumming in her ears, tasting salt and desire in his mouth too—

After what seemed like only a few seconds, though she knew it had been longer, Sherlock pulled away. His eyes were still fixed on hers, burning with the same heat that was now blooming in her belly.

"Molly," he said, "will you have dinner with me?"

In answer, she said the same thing she had answered Tom's proposal with—except now it actually felt right in her mouth, so right that it was as if she had never used the word properly before.

"Yes."


End file.
